Each faces a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of life imprisonment

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – After a week-long trial, two men have been convicted of kidnapping a man and torturing him for 17 hours in a basement, accusing him of being a police informant.

The Erie County District Attorney’s Office says last December, Wesley Woods, 23, and Stephen Dawson, 29, and a third person who testified against the pair punched, kicked and robbed 24-year-old Barry Workman before kidnapping him.

Workman was taken to the basement of Woods’ home near Jewett and Fillmore Avenues in Buffalo, where he was tortured for 17 hours.

Woods, Dawson and a third person accused Workman, who owed a drug debt, of being a police assailant. They beat him, pistol-whipped him, poured gasoline on him, stuck the barrel of a loaded gun in his mouth and drilled into his teeth with a power drill, according to the DA’s Office.

“What these two sociopaths did was they confronted the victim on the street they robbed him at gunpoint they beat him up and they weren’t satisfied,” DA Frank Sedita said. “This man, ironically, was not a witness for us but the defendants believed and because they thought he was a snitch they weren’t just robbing him. They already got the money on the street, they wanted to take him back to the house, they wanted to make him suffer, they wanted to teach all their friends and associates what would happen if you were a snitch.”

Dawson recorded parts of the incident on his cell phone and posted it on Facebook. The DA’s Office said family members reported it to police, who rescued the victim and arrested the defendants.

Sedita said, “That’s kind of the ironic part. That was some of our best evidence.”

News 4 obtained a copy of the video, and will not be using it because of the violent, graphic material.

Both Woods and Dawson each face a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of life imprisonment when they are sentenced in October.